


Picture Pretty

by RainbowArches



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/F, Photography
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-25
Updated: 2014-11-25
Packaged: 2018-02-26 22:57:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2669501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainbowArches/pseuds/RainbowArches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maria didn't know she was photogenic until Pepper showed her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Picture Pretty

The click and flash was what woke her. Slowly she turned onto her back and rubbed her eyes without opening them. Ideally she would have woken gradually, on her own, but anything was better than an alarm clock. Then her training caught up with her sluggish morning brain and she shot up, her eyes darting around the room.

“Sorry,” said Pepper. Oh. Right. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“What are you doing?”

Pepper held up the camera and clicked. The photo fluttered to the ground.

“Why are you taking sleeping pictures of me?”

Pepper snapped another one. Maria flinched from the flash and pulled the sheet higher up her chest. “You’re very photogenic.”

Maria studied Pepper’s face for any hint of teasing, but she looked completely genuine. Maria had never been told she was photogenic. She didn’t think she was particularly pretty. She didn’t think she was ugly, but she wasn’t an eye-catcher. Plain was the word she’d use.

Pepper was pretty. Even at five in the morning, before brushing her hair and putting make-up on, a sheet wrapped around her like a dress, she was pretty. Feminine.  Maria was called a tomboy when she was little and even when she was a teenager. She’d been proud of it. She was fastest in her class. She won an athletic scholarship. She didn’t mind getting her hands dirty, literally. But she also liked to wear lipstick and earrings and pretty dresses, only she never felt entirely comfortable in them. Even now, as a grown woman, she still felt too big for the dresses she liked, too out of place. She envied the ease with which Pepper slipped into a skirt and high-heals and proceeded to run an entire company.

Pepper collected the pictures off the floor and handed them to Maria. “Look how pretty you are.”

Maria sifted nervously through the pictures. There were a couple of her sleeping, her hand tucked under her pillow, her hair obscuring her face. The sheet draped over her casually. It wasn’t a bad picture. She looked peaceful. She found the two that Pepper took after she woke up. She was sitting up, holding the sheet loosely over her breasts. Her face was relaxed, flush. In the other one she was looking away, the sheet clasped to her collar bone. It looked nicer than she thought it would. The picture captured her discomfort with the camera, but it didn’t miss her comfort with this room, this bed, the photographer. She thought she could see what Pepper saw in the pictures. Pretty was certainly a word she could use for the pictures.

Pepper sprawled next to her like a mermaid, her chin on Maria’s shoulder. “Like them?”

“You make me look beautiful.”

Pepper shook her head. “Uh-uh.” She tapped the picture with her fingernail. “That’s you, not me.”

Maria smiled.

“You can keep one if you want.”

Maria considered this, shuffling the pictures again. “Nah,” she said, handing them back. “I don’t need one. They’re all yours.”

Pepper tucked the pictures into the sheet she was wearing, next to her breast. “Do you mind if we keep going?”

“Not at all.”

Pepper scooted to the foot of the bed and held the camera in front of her eyes. Maria leaned back, relaxed, and smiled comfortably through the camera to Pepper’s eyes.


End file.
